NEWS IN BRIEF

H:DUTCH airline KLM this week announced that it was calling off its planned acquisition of the remaining 50% of holiday air carrier Martinair and withdrawing its application for European Commission approval. KLM, which had been seeking to become the sole owner of Martinair, said it would not have been able to reach agreement on details of the condition the Commission would have attached to approving the deal. The Dutch airline employees’ trade union VNC afterwards attacked the Commission, accusing it of “being blind to the international balance of power” in the charter industry.

European Voice

5/25/99, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 4:41 AM CET

H:BRITISH mobile phone company Vodafone Group’s purchase of US wireless operator AirTouch Communications was cleared by the Commission this week after Vodafone agreed to sell its 17% stake in Germany’s E-Plus mobile phone company.

H:A CONSORTIUM led by German construction group Hochtief has been given the green light by the Commission to expand and operate the international airport in Berlin. Other consortium members include Frankfurt airport operator Flughafen Frankfurt Main, retail bank Bankgesellschaft Berlin and a subsidiary of the Swiss-Swedish engineering group ABB Asea Brown Boveri.

H:THE Commission has cleared plans by telecoms companies Mannesmann of Germany and Bell Atlantic of the US to take control of Italian mobile phone operator Omnitel Pronto Italia. The deal will be completed when Italy’s Olivetti sells its stake in Omnitel to Mannesmann as part of its bid to take over Italian telecom operator Telecom Italia.

H:THE decision by US giant Coca-Cola and the UK’s Cadbury Schweppes to abandon most of their planned soft drinks deal in Europe was welcomed by the Commission, which had warned Coke that there were potential competition problems with the company’s initial plan to buy Cadbury’s world-wide soft drinks business.

H:DEUTSCHE Post faces an EU investigation into charges that it is using revenues from its letter monopoly to subsidise its parcel services, a Commission official said this week. He said there had been increasing problems in all member states concerning the financing of post office subsidiaries.

H:ACTING Competition Commissioner Karel Van Miert said has European drug companies fined by the US last week over a vitamin price-fixing cartel should also face severe punishment in Europe. Switzerland’s Roche Holding and Germany’s BASF were fined 470 million euro and 210 million euro respectively by US authorities. “This kind of cartel needs to be fined very heavily,” said Van Miert.

H:EU competition regulators are unlikely to clear Spanish plans to compensate power firms once the market is open to competitors, Van Miert said this week. He added that although it was legitimate for an EU government to try to compensate electricity companies for investments that would become unprofitable as a result of liberalisation, Madrid’s proposals went too far.

H:PORSCHE Chairman Wendelin Wiedeking has written to the Commission complaining about EU governments’ subsidies to car makers. Wiedeking claims that some of his company’s rivals are making decisions about where to invest based on where the largest subsidies were available. The EU has in the past offered car makers financial incentives to invest in economically depressed areas.

CENTOCUR of the US said this week that its Remicade drug for treating Crohn’s disease had been cleared in Europe by an EU health panel.